


Twenty Centuries Of Stony Sleep

by Savageandwise



Series: Hear Me, My Lover [3]
Category: Music RPF, Real Person Fiction, The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drugs, I mean, M/M, McLennon, POV First Person, Suicide Attempt, Work of fiction, also angst, and stuff, not my take on reality, trigger warning drug use, very dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 15:45:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17645690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savageandwise/pseuds/Savageandwise
Summary: Spurred on by Paul's suicide attempt, John leaves Yoko and asks Paul to be with him. But the course of true love never did run smooth.





	Twenty Centuries Of Stony Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> So this is part 3 of "the suicide fic"
> 
> I had to think about the best way to continue because suicide is a serious thing and I really didn't want to write a story where them getting together solved all their problems.
> 
> I've been working really hard at my new job and just feel like my writing has been off since about September. This story is no exception. Though I do feel like I'm slowly working my way back to my old rhythm. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think. It would mean so much to me.

Have you finished now?  
Have you finally finished talking?

Because this is what I have to say. They tell you about falling in love. And they make it all about flowers and sunshine and soft looks. We must have written a hundred songs about that kind of love. But that's not it. That's not love. Or at least not any love I've ever known. Love is war. And it's not the real thing until your armies have been decimated. They're burning your colours, hanging your generals. A whole generation slaughtered. Half the world is always dying. And you're lying there bleeding out in the grass. That's real love.

That's why I never expected this thing with you to be easy. I never thought the day would come we could speak plainly about it. And then you tried to kill yourself. 

I asked you to come with me, that morning in the car. And after you’d stalled as long as you could, you told me how selfish I was to leave Yoko and expect you to follow suit.

Maybe I was selfish. Maybe that was exactly what I was expecting. Maybe I thought this was what you wanted me to do. I thought you needed a big declaration. You wanted me to turn the world on its head for you. And then when I did it, you left me standing there with my cock hanging out like a degenerate.

“That's what _you_ want. _You_ want a big declaration. I never asked for anything. Now they know...they know something...but we can still fix it,” you said.

Fix it? I was glad it was out. Weren't you? Why weren't you?

“They know now. So we might as well do what we want. We might as well be together.”

You thought I was oversimplifying. That's funny, Paul. You have a talent for oversimplifying. I'm usually the one complicating things. You said it was too late now. Too late to run off together. But time reset itself when you slit your wrists. It wasn't the same world it was before that night. I wasn't the same John. You weren't the same Paul. It was as simple as that.

“Please, come with me. When all the scandal dies down we can write songs like we always said we would,” I begged you.

“It's too late for that,” you repeated. “I have Linda, the baby. I made a commitment.”

You made a commitment to me too. Remember that? Years ago. You said it was forever. I suppose I shouldn't hold you to something you said when you were a lad. You ran your hands through your hair in agitation and I grasped them in mine to stop you from fussing.

You were so worried about what other people thought, Paul. So worried that you were willing to give real love up because of a disapproving glance. Or maybe you thought you could have your golden boy reputation and me on the side.

Didn't you know it was too late for that?

Didn't you know you we don't get to have our cake and eat it too?

I remember you once telling me that saying was fucking stupid. Because you're Paul McCartney, you made a career out of having cake and eating it.

“Fuck commitment. You were mine before you married her,” I said childishly.

“ _You_ turned away from me,” you reminded me.

“I know.”

“ _You_ ended it. _You_ went with her. Don't put this on me.”

“I know.”

“It was never…” There was a break in your voice that made my chest ache.

We'd never defined it. We never said what this was. 

“I love you,” I said forcefully. “I love you. Doesn't that matter at all?”

You didn't have an answer for that. You kissed me instead. You kissed me like you were trying to keep it in, like if you let go you might never be able to stop. So afraid. So afraid of losing control. 

Shame you don't kiss like you sing, baby. 

You did once. When we were lads and you wore your recklessness like a banner. Like you were daring the world to comment. I should have known it was all just a game to you. But then, killing yourself is no game, is it?

“You could have died.”

“I didn't though. I'm fine. It was just…”

“Just what? An accident?”

Did you know what that felt like, you stupid man? To see you lying in that bed, pale as death? It felt like I was being tortured. It felt like a punishment. I wanted to shake you till you saw sense. I wanted to scream at you until you agreed to come with me.

“John,” you whispered. “Please be reasonable.” 

You were holding onto me like you didn't want to let go. I wished you would just make up your fucking mind. We were never on the same page.

You were hot and cold. 

Yes and no. 

Hello. Goodbye.

“And what's reasonable? What happens now? How are you going to fix it?”

You pulled away from me, folded your arms across your chest like you were freezing.

“Things will calm down in time,” you said.

You thought you were being courageous. Doing the right thing. Choosing your family over me. You thought you were being honourable. You made it easy on yourself, Paul, when you chose the path decided for you by boring old men and their frigid wives. You made it easy on yourself when you worried about what people said. When you let yourself be governed by your position in the charts. 

You said I should go back to Yoko. We could issue a press release. We could spin this story out of harm's way. You were delusional. You'd walked through a crowd of people ready to lynch you and still thought you could get them to buy your records again. You hadn't yet realised, as I had, that it was all over now, Baby Blue. You hadn't sat, as I had, head bowed before a pack of wolves begging them to forgive you for a comment taken out of context. Waiting to see if they would do more than burn our records. Waiting for some psycho to shoot you in the back. 

If we came out of this with our lives we'd be lucky, I thought. I was damned if I was going to spend that life without you. I put my head against your chest, my lips against your breastbone. You sat completely motionless, your breath caught in your throat. And I could hear your heart beating so loud it filled the small space with the sound of your panic. There was a noise you made. An animal keening. I knew then what was going to happen. I could taste it, bittersweet on my tongue, inevitable.

There was a vague thought in the back of my mind that the windows were darkened and the passenger seat soundproofed. But honestly I didn't give a toss. I looked up and caught your eye. You didn't look like you wanted to wait for things to settle. You didn't look like you wanted me to go back to Yoko. I put my hands on the buckle of your belt and you shut your eyes. Your lips were trembling.

“Tell me to stop,” I said, opening your trousers and slipping my hand inside to feel you.

You shook your head.

I leaned down, ran my tongue against the length of your prick. I could smell you, the warm, sharp scent of your skin. The musky scent of that nest of dark hair. There was a pain in my chest, so intense I could barely breathe. When I took you in my mouth, you sighed, hands settling on the crown of my head. We didn't move for a moment. And then your hips tilted forward and you were pushing into me and all I could do was match your rhythm. In the moment before you came, I felt you slow down, your face pressed into the blackened window, your breath frosting the glass. 

I thought: stop all the clocks. 

I never want this to end. 

When it ends the spell will be broken.

“John,” you gasped. The sound of my name was the clock striking midnight. I swallowed every bitter drop.

You don't know how many times I've pulled this scene apart in my mind, trying to understand what happened next. I felt your hands gentle on my arms, you extracted yourself from my embrace, tucked yourself back into your clothing. Your face was flushed. You looked down at your knees.

“No,” I whispered urgently. 

“I'm sorry.” 

You buttoned your coat slowly and leaned over and put your cheek against mine. You told me that you couldn't do what I asked of you. You didn't have the strength. You told me very softly, very calmly, that we were poison to each other. Our love had landed you in hospital. You said you were sorry again. As if that made things better. Then you got out of the car. You walked over to Linda.

Just like that you walked away.

I drove around for hours before I realised what I was going to do. Usually someone else took care of this part. Yoko or some assistant. Or you'd be offered drugs in some social situation. The Stones were recording in some studio or another and Keith always had a little something. I found the man who kept him supplied in a nearby pub. I'd seen him around at parties, he was one of those nondescript hangers-on. He looked at me with disinterest and then recognition sparked in his eye.

“Oh, it's you,” he said.

He had a comically small head and wide spaced eyes. He had the look of an ant with his skinny, slope-shouldered body. Beside him was a bloated, pasty-faced fellow who reminded me of a slug. I hedged for a moment before telling the ant what I’d come for. Ant assured me Slug was trustworthy and we carried on with our business transaction.

“I read about you in the papers just now,” Slug said at last. “You and McCartney. He always struck me as odd.”

Ant elbowed his friend in the ribs but he didn't seem to take the hint. I tried to look at him as though he were a minor irritation. This wouldn't be the last time someone confronted me about us. This man was a nobody. What would I say if someone of consequence asked?

“Lucky for you they legalised all that, yeah?”

“All that…” I murmured, my mind going blank.

Slug was scrutinising me whilst Ant finished his pint and gestured for them to leave.

“It's only, and pardon me for saying,” Slug said, blithely ignoring Ant’s warning. “I always thought you lads were swimming in cunt.”

I shrugged. I thought how often you reminded me to let it go when some lackwit mouthed off to me. You didn't always follow your own advice.

“I do recall reading about you and that manager of yours. What was his name? The Jew.”

I clenched my fist. Sometimes you got off on me not letting it go.

“Didn't you beat that northern DJ to a pulp for implying you were lovers? When the whole time you were slipping it to Paulie from behind.”

My hand was throbbing. Knuckles bloodied. Head pounding.

Ant was dragging Slug out the door. Slug’s nose was flowing with blood, his mouth distorted with rage. “You fucking poof! Bloody revolting!”

Let it fucking be. 

“Mr. Lennon,” the barman said gently when they'd gone. “If you'd like to clean up you can use the sink. And then if you'd be so kind as to leave? We don't want any trouble.”

His words made no sense to me. I was John Lennon. He showed me the door like a common brawler.

Back in the car I told the driver the name of a hotel and then listlessly stared at my bruised knuckles. The band was over. My marriage over. We were over. I played that song in a loop. Over and over and over and over again. A part of me was numb, looking in at myself in a detached manner. Things, as you said, would calm down in time. The bigger part of me wanted to kill every frantic thought in my head. I itched to fill my veins with sweet oblivion. 

Klein called almost as soon as I stepped through the door of my hotel room. 

“What are we going to do about this situation?” he asked skipping over the niceties. “I heard you left Yoko. Is it a separation? You've barely been married a year. What you need to do is concentrate on the marriage. If we deny allegations about you and Paul then things might blow over.”

“Fuck that.”

“You need to see sense here. What the press has is some unfortunate shots of the two of you. And Paul's episode. That's not anything concrete…” Klein said.

“You back off of Paul, I'm not denying a thing.”

There was a long strained pause. “What you're saying is it's true?” 

“What I'm saying is there's nothing to spin here. Yoko and I are finished. The press can write what they like.”

“But it's true?”

“Yes, it's fucking true, okay? Whose side are you on anyway?” 

“Yours, John. It's just...Because Paul has basically said it isn't true.”

When? When did you say it wasn't true? While I was scoring my hit? While I was punching that wanker?

“Where?”

“Evening Standard. ‘John is and will always be my brother. As are all the Beatles. People will try to read into things where there's nothing to read. But it's as simple as that’.”

You always knew how to really hurt me, didn't you, brother?

“John, you might as well confirm what he said.”

“Goodbye, Allen.”

I called reception at once and asked them to send up the Standard. I read your statement until my eyes burned and then I climbed under the covers and went to sleep.

I woke to a searing pain in my hand. It was swollen, the knuckles an angry purple. For a moment I'd forgotten where I was and then I saw the paper at the foot of the bed. I had some vague thought I might call you and ask you to reassure me. We loved each other and not in a brotherly fashion. Only the previous morning I'd sucked you off in the car. Only the previous morning I'd begged you to come away with me. My next thought was I might call Yoko, ask her to fix this. To save me from you. That's what happened in India, you know. I asked her to help me to leave you behind. And it worked, damn you, until you tried to off yourself.

I ordered a pot of tea instead and considered my options. They brought it up with a fresh paper. I was startled to see George's name in the headline. His smarmy, holier-than-thou smirk in the photograph on the front page. There was his quote in black and white:

“I don't know what they do when they're alone. It's not my affair. They're partners after all. Lennon McCartney.”

Though your denial had cut me to the core, George's namby pamby confirmation wasn't any better. I didn't know what I wanted anymore. I suppose I wanted you to admit it was true. Admit to the world it was true. I didn't want to save face. I wanted rock bottom. I wanted you to say it, not George, not anyone else. We were lovers. That's all there was to it.

I wanted stop the pain. To step out of myself and leave all of it behind. 

This pedestrian entanglement with death. 

The image of your bound wrists. 

Yoko’s tear-stained face. 

The aftermath of the band's split. 

Your denial of our love. 

The scent of you sweet in my nostrils. 

Bitter dregs of you on my tongue. 

The way you said I love you.

I lied. I did understand why you cut yourself. I did understand why you wanted it to be over. Because I was the same.

You must have felt so hopeless that night in your music room, Brian Wilson blasting through your headphones. You must have been frightened. Fear like a small, ferocious, sharp clawed animal that lived inside your ribcage. You must have been desperate. Why didn't you tell me? If you were so desperate? Why did you slice through skin and vein? How could you? I pictured you time and again, the life seeping from you. Heather's small, naked foot in the puddle of your blood. 

_It's so sad to watch a sweet thing die._

Fuck you, Paul. What was it for? What was it for if not to make things right between us?

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the heroin I'd purchased the day before. Ant had so kindly provided me with the paraphernalia as well as the drug. 

It was like falling into a warm bath, the water viscous, sweet as candy. My brain was flooded with pleasure, firecracker-lovely. Every nerve in my body sang. Every cell. Why couldn't it be like this always, if I couldn't I have you? Why couldn't I lose myself in this pleasure?

I flickered in and out of existence. And finally tumbled over the edge, head first down Alice's rabbit hole. It was loud on the other side. And it hurt. I could feel my insides withering. The stench of vomit was everywhere. I opened my eyes. They worked on that slab of meat body, that yellowed, shrunken man. Paul, who was he? That man whose heart had stopped? Whose lungs had filled with liquid? I wanted to scream but my mouth was taped shut.

“John,” she said softly. She clutched at the side of the bed, her hands seemed so small, childlike. “They called me. Because...well, I'm your wife.”

I nodded at her. She looked like a crushed petal. 

“You could have died, injecting it like that. I…” she stopped, cleared her throat and angrily rubbed at her eyes. “You were blue in the face. Your fingernails...they were black. That's what the nurse said. You're lucky someone found you. Some maid hoping for an autograph. You're lucky!”

“Was he…?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Oh, he was here,” Yoko said flatly. “Showed his face and then left again all in the space of five minutes. He didn't even go in to see you.” 

She leaned close. “You've got to stop,” she whispered. “Did you mean it with the divorce?”

I waited a beat before nodding. She stiffened.

“Then I hope you find someone to help you. It won't be him. I don't think he has the strength.”

They let me go home to Tittenhurst. She had taken most of her things and had gone to stay with friends. I was surprised at how well she seemed to be taking it. She had in the past, threatened to kill herself. Under the circumstances she must have known how inappropriate that would have been.

Ringo came first. Then Cynthia with wide-eyed Julian. Then sheepish George. 

You were last. 

When you walked into the room you sucked out all the oxygen. I couldn't breathe with you there. A wave of sickness washed over me. I could have died and you couldn't be bothered to visit me until now. I thought, with a sinking feeling, that I'd misjudged you badly. You said we were poisoning each other that day in the car. And for the first time I began to think you were right. I recalled the doctor's grave face, his quiet, deliberate words as he described my body's reaction to the overdose. The next time I might not be as lucky. The next time.

“You idiot,” you said. “I was worried sick.”

Worried sick and yet it took you days to come by.

You walked over to where I was sitting but instead of taking the chair beside me you chose to sit on the floor by my foot. The humbleness of your action startled me. A feeling of tenderness was spreading in my chest. My wildly swinging emotions were giving me whiplash. 

“Now we're even,” I said, trying for wry humour.

“Not even close,” you said. You looked furious. That flint-flash of your eyes, tight set of your mouth. Your anger spurred mine on. 

“What do you care?” I spat. “Oh, we're brothers, that's right.”

You put your hand on my knee. “You knew I was going to make it right with the press. Don't tell me that was why?”

I couldn't begin to tell you why. Because I was sick of feeling. Because it was more beautiful than anything else I'd ever felt. Because it was what I deserved. 

You grabbed hold of my knees and squeezed them. I could feel you trembling. 

“I didn't want this, John. I didn't think you would go and nearly die on me.” 

Now you knew how I felt. Now it was my turn to tell you it was an accident.

You shook your head. “It's because of what I said that day.”

I didn't know how to deny that.

You looked like shit. Your eyes were so dark in your pale face. Your hair long and unwashed and shaggy. Wasn't Linda taking care of you at all? I asked as much.

“Linda left.”

“What?” I asked sharply. “What do you mean, she left?”

“She...left,” you said slowly. “I told her to get out. I didn't mean...I...but then...” You stuttered. “...so she took the children and left.”

Sometimes when I got what I wanted I didn't know how to be happy about it. I felt empty. The kind of emptiness that can never be filled. I didn't have the strength to listen to you turn me down again so I didn't tell you what I really thought: Good. Good riddance. Now there's no one else between us. No one but ourselves.

“She'll be back.”

You shook your head. “She told me I should get some help. She didn't think she could watch me ruin myself. I told her to...I told her to get stuffed.”

I stared at you in shock. You put your head in your hands, pulled your hair again. This time I let you. 

She left so you came back to me. Not because you loved me but because you never could be alone.

“You don't know everything, John...I haven't been honest with you.”

“Too right.”

“No. I mean...part of the reason I said those things…I didn't tell you…I should have said...” 

You gripped your left wrist tightly. Your eyes were so wide they filled your drawn face. I tried to think of the very worst thing you could possibly say. The very worst. I wasn't even close.

“The doctors say I might have damaged the nerves in my hands. I may never play again.”

It started small, a flicker of pain in my chest, just a twinge. I sucked in my breath and exhaled thinking if I concentrated on breathing it might pass.

“John,” you murmured. “Could you still love me if I couldn't play?” 

You looked so young then. Like that kid who played me “Twenty Flight Rock” at the fete. That cheeky kid who dared tell me my guitar was tuned wrong. That kid who dared me to be better. Be great. And then all at once I started to cry, really cry. You put your arms around my waist and I pressed my nose against your hair. You smelled like you, you smelled of home. It only made me cry harder. You brushed your lips against the hollow of my throat. I could feel the wetness from your tears on my skin. You were murmuring under your breath, comforting little nonsense words and all at once it struck me what was wrong with us.

“We're poison,” I said, gently pushing you away. “You were right.”

“What?” You blinked at me through your tears.

“We're killing each other. We're poison. You give me this news...and...I can't even comfort you.”

It made me sick to my stomach. I hadn't eaten solid food in days, there was nothing to expel. I could feel the bile rising in my throat and it tasted like the end of a bad romance. How could we be wrong for each other when we'd created such beauty? How could the one thing I needed be killing me?

“I shouldn't have said that, the other day. About us poisoning each other,” you said. “I didn't mean it. I was just out of my head.”

“It's true though,” I said firmly. “And it's not because…” I cleared my throat. “If you couldn't play you would still be you. I don't love you because of that anyway.”

Your shoulders were shaking. “What are you saying?”

I was saying it was over. I was saying I had changed my mind. I was saying if we stayed together we would kill each other one way or another.

“Nothing you didn't already say the other day in the car. You didn't just decide to die one day. And I...It's like I'm playing Russian roulette. And I don't know how to stop. I need to stop, you know?”

You nodded imperceptibly. We sat in silence for a long, long time, comfortable not speaking. Then you lit a cigarette and handed it to me. It was a olive branch.

“That George, the cheek of him,” you said suddenly. 

I took a drag and handed it back, laughing and coughing through the smoke. “It's not my affair!”

You started to laugh too, till a different sort of tears were streaming down your cheeks. “I wanted to go over to his house and punch him in the face. But Linda told me I was being an idiot.”

I looked down at my injured hand. They'd bandaged it in hospital. It didn't even hurt anymore.

“It's funny now. But I was so angry with him. And I don't even know why. I wanted them to know about us.”

You shrugged. “Just wait, in ten years we'll look back at this whole mess and laugh ourselves sick.”

I plucked the ciggie from your fingers and placed it between my lips. “See you in ten years, babe.”

And then I was alone. I was truly alone for the first time ever. So were you I assume. What was it like for you, Paul? Did you let the groupies back in? Did you crawl back to Linda? I shouldn't judge. I spent a good week sleeping and feeling sorry for myself. Dreaming about the escape heroin could afford me. 

I hope you find someone to help you, Yoko had said. 

She opened the door and then folded her arms over her chest.

“I had to read about all of this in the newspapers. Not even a phone call to set things straight. In over a month, not a peep.”

I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Hello to you too, Mimi.”

She let me in and made me tea served with a side of guilt. Familiar fare, comforting to me in my mixed up state.

“I read about your Paul in the papers,” she said, smoothing the tablecloth surreptitiously. “I read the gossip ones too. About you and him.”

Then she told me she'd always known about us, Paul. That she'd always known you were bad news.

“I could have told you he would leave. An opportunist if I ever saw one. Trying to climb up beyond his class.”

I asked her if the queer stuff bothered her. If she was disgusted with me.

“I'm not delighted,” she admitted. “But not much you can do about it.”

That much was true. 

I spent the days walking on the beach and avoiding journalists. I wrote in my journal like some silly teenage girl. I thought of you. Did you think of me? Did you feel my loss like a severed limb? I still loved you, you know? Did you still love me though I'd pushed you away?

One day I came back from a walk to see a package lying on my bed, your handwriting scrawled across the brown paper. Mimi passed my doorway and peered in. She gave me a strange look. Her lips thin but her eyes bright.

I sat on the bed and picked up the package, my fingers finding the sellotape in the corners, peeled it back slowly until in a fit of impatience I tore the paper like a kid on Christmas morning. It was an unlabeled 45. The cardboard cover was blank except for a few words jotted down in pencil: For John. From Me.

I imagined you'd recorded a message for me and had it pressed especially. I pictured you packing it and printing out the address. I didn't listen to it for days. What could you possibly have to say to me? Whatever it was I didn't want to know.

Then one night I woke, shivering, sweating, dry-mouthed. _Cold turkey._ It was time. It was finally time to listen. I put the record on the turntable and held my breath. Your voice spilled out, clear and sweet. That simple tune. Those heartfelt words. It was a song I had heard again and again without listening to it properly. A song I had worked on with you.

_Who knows how long I've loved you_  
_You know I love you still_  
_Will I wait a lonely lifetime_  
_If you want me to_  
_I will_

It was a song that could have been written a decade ago. It had the sound of our early days. I knew you'd struggled writing it for ages, years maybe. I finally understood why. It was never about Linda. It was about me. It was still about me. 

_And when at last I find you_  
_Your song will fill the air_  
_Sing it loud so I can hear you_  
_Make it easy to be near you_  
_For the things you do endear you to me_  
_You know I will_  
_I will_

You were still waiting for me.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you to Twinka, my darling. And Whereitwillgo and Drearymondays. You're lovely, lovely humans and I couldn't have written this without you. Thanks to Whereitwillgo for help on George's quote.
> 
> The title of this fic was taken from William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming":
> 
>  
> 
> The darkness drops again; but now I know  
> That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
> Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.
> 
>  
> 
> There will eventually be a part 4.


End file.
